Julia’s Photos Part 2!

31/07 (1) My first day of the year going out on the free-range. A group of four females (Bumble, Okapi, Clootie and Malawi) were spotted down by the road. Another group had been spotted at the top of Cairn Gorm so the plan was to join the groups up. Chris (another herder) headed up Cairn Gorm to bring his group lower down and I took the group of four up and over Wind Ridge which connects to Cairn Gorm. My group were wonderful at following my bag of feed I was carrying, stopping every so often for a quick graze.
31/7 (2) Okapi was one of the greediest in the group and was eagerly following me the whole way up the hill. I was struck by how beautiful she appeared and her lovely nature.
31/07 (3) Behind Okapi we can see the rain cloud coming in. Thankfully the weather only changed for five minutes and soon went back to lovely sunshine.
31/07 (4) Whilst taking this photo Bumble decided to push me over in an attempt to get to the feed bag. It was my first time meeting her and it was very memorable as she is such a greedy female!
31/07 (5) The beautiful Clootie looking over the hills. We didn’t manage to join the two groups up in the end as both groups of females began to loose interest in our feedbags. More importantly though, we had managed to move the small herd away from the roads and any fast cars travelling on them. Over the course of the summer, we saw a lot more of the females and gradually got them used to following the feedbag for longer in preparation for the rutting season where they are required to follow the bag all the way down to the hill enclosure.

Julia

A Recovery Mission

Whilst many of our visitors come and meet some of our reindeer, mostly the males, in our hill enclosure, it’s great to remember that our herd all get to free-range for part of the year. The males, who are a little lazy at times and can’t be relied on to actually go and ‘be’ reindeer, rather than hanging out on the car parks, do most of their free-ranging on  mountains over on the Glenlivet Estate (which are a little more isolated) over the winter months – December-May. The females, however, are out and about for most of the year on the Cairngorms. Their range is vast, with our leased land covering thousands of acres on the high ground.

When they reach the boundary though, there is no fence, nothing to stop them, so on occasion a small group of reindeer will wander a little further than they should. Thankfully most of our neighbours are pretty understanding, and we do our best to retrieve any “wanderers” as soon as possible. So it was that Fiona and I set off on a showery morning across to Glen Feshie, where we’d received a report of some of our girls hanging out on one of the hills. Glen Feshie is perhaps eight miles away from the hill enclosure, as the crow flies – a thirty minute drive by road.

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The beautiful rolling hills at Glen Feshie

First up, we spied at the hills using a telescope from a good vantage point, and it was only a minute before Fiona spotted a reindeer, then two, then three. Fantastic! It can be like looking for a needle in a haystack at times, so we were off to a good start! We then drove to the car park and set off walking up the track through the woods, an easy trail to follow but all uphill. Fiona has been keeping pretty fit with lots of running recently, whereas I have not, so I was certainly feeling my inferior fitness! We had Tiree with us, Fiona’s dog, who we can use to push the reindeer in the right direction if necessary. She was bouncing around, full of energy and excited about being somewhere new!

It took us about 45 minutes to get clear of the trees, but once we were, we quickly spotted the naughty reindeer just a few hundred metres ahead. They were loving the good grazing and plentiful lichen – no wonder they’d decided it was a good spot to hang out. Time for a plan of action! We left Tiree waiting off to one side, blending perfectly into the hillside, and I skirted round towards the females, shaking a small bag of feed and calling. Three heads shot up in the air, suspicious, but it wasn’t long before one decided I was friend not foe and started making her way over, swiftly followed by the others. Peering at each, we identified them as Fern, Cailin and Clootie. Fiona was close behind me with three headcollars tucked into her jacket, and it was perhaps the easiest time either of us had ever had catching females: offer bag of food, reindeer nose goes in, arm round neck, headcollar on. Within 2 minutes we had our three lassies on headcollars, looking slightly betrayed by their greed! Of course when we got back we told a slightly different tale to the other herders, about how they were only captured due to our extreme skill and herding prowess (which wasn’t believed for a second…).

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Fern and Clootie couldn’t quite believe what their greed had done to them
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Fiona delighted that we’d been prepared and brought food
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Lunch with a view!

Before starting down, we sat and had a spot of lunch (the reindeer too), admiring the view, then Fiona went on ahead with Tiree back to the car park (reindeer and dogs not being a good mix as they resemble wolves, their natural predator) and I pottered along behind with the reindeer.

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Fiona then ran back up to join me and help with the girls, who didn’t seem too fussed by the unexpected change to their day, and were enjoying all of the mushrooms alongside the track – especially Cailin!

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Cailin tucking in to a path-side mushroom

With only one quick detour off the path to avoid a hillwalker with a dog, we soon reached the car park, and about two minutes later Tilly arrived with the cattle truck to transport the reindeer back to the right side of the mountains.

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Retrieved!

Thirty minutes later, we pulled up beside the road, led the girls back out and up to our hill enclosure for the night, where they enjoyed a good feed (hopefully reminding them that it’s a good area to stay near!), before going back out to free range the next day. Hopefully they’ll now stay in the area they are meant to be in!

Andi

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